


"Lines of Intellect"

by farad



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:40:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lines and curves, Ezra, Vin, the things that shape their views of the world.  Whether they realize it or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Lines of Intellect"

**Author's Note:**

> For Dail, a much belated "Happy Birthday"!
> 
> Also for the Second Daybook Bingo prompt, "Lines and Curves" – special thanks to the awesome JoJo for the idea for this, and for the idea of posting 'prompt help' on Daybook!
> 
> Betaed by the ever wonderful and long-suffering of my betas, JoJo and Delphi, without whom I would be adrift in a world of irritating punctuation, unclear ideas, and half-formed thoughts. Best, though, they do help me through the tangled knots of characterization!

 

 

_"Men are governed by lines of intellect - women: by curves of emotion." - James Joyce_

 

 

Ezra looked up from his game of solitaire as Buck and Vin walked over to 'his' table in the saloon. "Gentlemen! A good day, I hope?" He flipped the next card over, a five of hearts, looked back at this rows of cards, and placed it perfectly on the six of clubs in the third line.

 

"Good as it can get," Buck answered, pulling out a chair beside Ezra and dropping into it. He set his beer mug down on the table, too close to the long right line of cards and knocking some of them out of alignment.

 

Ezra barely noticed it, though, his attention on Vin, who sat down across the table from him. Vin took off his hat and ran one hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead and carding through some of the worst wind-brought tangles. His face was flushed, his cheeks and forehead pinker than usual, and while Ezra knew it was mostly likely from the sun, it still made him smile across at the other man.

 

Vin smiled back, creases gathering at the corners of his bright eyes. Ezra's muse, never far away these days, stirred familiarly in his belly, urging him to memorize every line at Vin's eyes, down his nose, across his broad shoulders.

 

"Looks like you're having a slow day," Buck said, and Ezra forced his attention off Vin and toward Buck.

 

"It's early still," Ezra said, glancing down to his cards. From habit, he reached over and straightened the last line, his practiced fingers making short work of setting the line back into precise shape. "The evening stretches before us, yet to be determined."

 

"First you're drawing, now you're being all poetical," Buck laughed, lifting up his mug. "Hell, Ezra, if you weren't handling them cards like you always do, I'd be worried about you."

 

Ezra laughed with him, careful not to look at Vin. "Perhaps it's just that you've never noticed before," he said, letting his fingers straighten up another line of cards.

 

"Maybe," Buck agreed after he'd swallowed. "Though I do know how careful you are about your cards, and how much you like to make sure they're all nice and even, like." He tilted his chin and Ezra looked down to find his fingers carefully setting the cards at a standard distance from each other, so he could clearly see the suit and number of each card. He couldn't remember when he'd started doing it by touch, but it had to have been very long ago, around the time that Maude had taught him the attractions of colors and numbers and how people were often drawn to a well-ordered, easy to see, and understand game of cards.

 

Ezra shrugged, lifting his hand from the solitaire game and catching up his whiskey glass. "There's nothing more compelling than a well-ordered world, Mr. Wilmington, and nothing speaks more to order than clean, straight lines. They draw the eye every time." He lifted his glass in a toast but as he brought it to his lips, he looked to Vin, surprised to see a frown on his handsome features. He drank, thinking to ask what was the matter, but as he swallowed, the doors of the saloon swung open and a group of ranch hands stomped in, calling for whiskey, beer, and cards.

 

Ezra put his glass down and gathered up his cards, tucking them into their box. When he looked back at Vin, the frown was gone and Vin's attention was on the door as Chris pushed into the saloon, his black coat swirling around him.

 

*&*&*&*&

 

 

"I - I want to - " Ezra struggled, trying to find a way to say it, to use words he didn't normally like to use, so crass, so base -

 

"I know, want it too," Vin gasped out. "Come on, let me - " He shifted, or tried to; with Ezra on top of him, it was hard for him to move, but he was all muscle, and he was needy, perhaps more than Ezra himself.

 

Ezra forced his eyes open, no mean feat at the moment. He was so close to release that only the promise of something more, the temptation of heat and tightness, of being inside Vin, stopped him.

 

Vin pushed himself up the bed, the muscles of his bare upper arms contoured with the effort, the sheen of sweat glistening in the spare light of the one lamp on the dresser, turned so low that it barely reached the bed. Vin's long legs spread wide enough for Ezra to settle comfortably between them – a familiar invitation. The sight came to Ezra in his dreams now, and he had been tempted to commit it to paper more times than he could count.

 

But as his lower body assumed the logical position, Ezra frowned. This wasn't – well, he wanted it, but he wanted something more. He leaned down, his lips hard against Vin's. Without a thought, Vin opened to him, mouth hungry, seeking, his hands catching at Ezra's shoulders and pulling him down as he arched up, his skin hot against Ezra's.

 

Ezra knew Vin wanted him, wanted to be taken by him – it was something that still confused him, but something he'd stopped questioning. With Vin, he'd decided to trust 'gift horses'. So far, it had worked for him, seemed to be working for them both.

 

But Ezra kept waiting for things to fall apart. His dresser drawer held pages and pages of his drawings of Vin, tucked safely away for the days after Vin had come to his senses and Ezra was left alone with only the memory and the stark white parchment covered in lines of graphite.

 

The thought of that loss now, though, was passing, a bare shadow ghosting through his awareness as he broke the kiss, resting his weight on his arms as he rubbed his forehead against Vin's and said, "Turn over. Trust me, I won't hurt you."

 

They'd been doing this long enough for Ezra to know the differences in Vin's reactions, in his stillness. Vin was so still now, in the aftermath of Ezra's words, that Ezra knew something was wrong. This wasn't the stillness of surprise and consideration, the stillness that had come the first time Ezra had invited him up to his room. This wasn't the stillness of expectation, the stillness that had come when Ezra had offered to shave him.

 

This was the stillness of worry that had come when Ezra had suggested that he tie Vin's restless hands to the bed. That had come when he'd suggested the two of them leave town for a while, without telling Chris. That had come when he'd suggested that Vin should come to dinner with Maude the last time she'd been in town.

 

"I won't hurt you," he heard himself say again, as if it were the concern. And perhaps it was; at the strangest of times, Vin was skittish – not in the sex itself, which Ezra was prepared for, but in sleeping in Ezra's bed afterwards, or using hot water to shave, or in allowing Ezra to help him retie the bandages around his cracked ribs. It wasn't just pain, but often pleasure, or at least comfort that Vin seemed most threatened by.

 

"I know," Vin breathed the words quickly, as if he had to reassure himself as well as Ezra. "Just - I don't - "

 

"You don't trust me?" And really, Ezra chastised himself even before the words had passed his lips, why should Vin? Why should any of them? It wasn't as if he'd done a stellar job of living up to what little trust they had placed him him, given his easy distraction and the different way he prioritized things.

 

But as he let the reality of it sink in, Vin sighed and shifted, his hips pressing up against Ezra's. "Hell yes, I trust you. Wouldn't be here if I didn't. Just – well, I . . . " He paused then, and for the first time that Ezra could remember, Vin looked away from him.

 

It was confusing. Vin had never behaved this way, as if there were something he was – ashamed? Was it possible – no, most certainly not. If there were anyone who was more accepting of his own foibles than Vin Tanner, Ezra couldn't even imagine it. At times, the very thought of how open Vin was about himself made Ezra's guts draw in so hard on themselves that he thought he might implode.

 

"You just – what?" he said, trying to imagine something, anything, that would make Vin, as desperate as Ezra himself, step back from the promise of release, a release that he himself craved.

 

"Don't like," Vin started, then he paused a took a deep breath. Ezra knew the ploy, stalling to buy time to think. Which meant that the next words out of Vin's mouth would be a lie.

 

The idea of it, that Vin would lie to him was unsettling. He knew it should make him feel bad, knew it should make him feel cheated.

 

But this was Vin Tanner. Like Chris Larabee, Vin took great pride in being who he was all the time – no conditions, no exceptions, no compromise. But if he were lying, he was compromising here. Which meant it was something that – embarrassed him?

 

Ezra could hardly fathom the idea.

 

"It ain't you," Vin said, his voice sharp suddenly, desperate. "It's me. I just - I don't like to roll over. To be . . . "

 

Vulnerable was the word that came to Ezra's mind, but somehow, he knew it wasn't right. Vin had been vulnerable with him many times now. There had seemed to be few issues of trust, physically, not once they'd settled the issue of bondage.

 

He knew he should be patient, knew that if he played along at this point, gave it time, Vin would eventually tell him. As with the vulnerability, Vin was, at his damnable core, honest. He couldn't not tell Ezra, when the time presented itself.

 

But Ezra's curiosity had never been patient, nor had it ever been controllable. He opened his eyes, looking down into the pale blue gaze that was looking back up at him. Something in that gaze warned him to be careful, to recognize the boundaries that were as much a part of Vin Tanner as his mare's leg and his damnable buckskin jacket and his spyglass.

 

He hesitated, words, so often his best weapon, eluding him as his body, his cock, made its own demands.

 

Then Vin tilted his head back, his eyes closing as he pushed up against Ezra, and all thought of words, of argument, fled in the tidal rush of desire.

 

Afterward, as he lay cooling beside Vin, his arm strung tight over the other man's belly, he tried to figure out a way back to the conversation, a way back into the lie. But sleep overtook him, and when he woke later, the dark was deep and heavy, the lamp on the dresser out and the bed beside him empty.

 

*&*&*&*&

 

"What'cha doing, hoss?"

 

Ezra looked up as Buck dropped into the chair beside him and threw his long legs up onto the rail.

 

"Just a little distraction," Ezra answered, looking across at the restaurant. It was after the mid-day meal, but there were still people seated at the small tables that the new proprietress, Mrs. Barstoe, had put outside in a bid to draw more business. So far, it was working; as long as the days weren't too hot or too rainy, people were drawn to the comfort of eating outside. It helped that she had also invested in an awning that created a patch of shade.

 

"Drawing again, huh."

 

Ezra drew a deep breath, his fingers cramping as they gripped the pencil harder than necessary. Before he could answer, Buck went on.

 

"That's right nice – you did a good job with Miss Amelia's hat, all square and all. But you really need to work on the way you draw women. Miss Amelia ain't all straight like that! Why, that's the best part of a woman, the way she curves and bends and - "

 

"It's the style, Buck!" JD interrupted, his words coming as fast as his steps on the boardwalk. "Ezra's told us already – it's something called impersonation, where you make people look like - "

 

The pencil in Ezra's hand broke, the sound of the snap as sharp and clear as a bullet fired from a small caliber gun. Perhaps a gun like the one Ezra carried under his sleeve. The sound certainly had the same effect, as JD came to a sudden halt, and Buck's feet dropped from the railing and both of them were still, staring at him as if there were danger.

 

In the stillness, Ezra heard the familiar chink-chink of Chris Larabee's spurs as he walked steadily down the boardwalk. He also heard the echo of a second set of steps that he knew better, one that matched Larabee's in both stride and spur-jingle.

 

"Everything all right?" Chris said, his voice even but rough, as if he hadn't talked in a while. Given his company, Ezra expected no less.

 

"Um," JD started, but Buck's voice cut over him, as cheerful as always.

 

"Ezra was just showing us his latest drawing! If you look right now, you can see what he's drawing, over there across the street! Well," he added, sitting back in his chair and putting his feet back up on the railing, "sort of."

 

Ezra turned to glare at the other man just as an arm reached in and took the pad of paper from him. He jerked, trying to clutch at it, but it was already out of his hands. Chris held it, his face scrunched into a frown as he looked at it.

 

Ezra's first, angry instinct was to stand up, to demand the return of his property, but as he tossed aside the broken parts of the pencil and gripped the arms of the chair, ready to push himself up, he heard Maude's voice in his head: 'Never, ever, dear boy, let your temper control you. Use anger to get the advantage, not to show your hand. Use it to think strategically. Don't make an enemy unless it serves a better political purpose.'

 

It was that memory that gave him pause, which was enough for Chris to look past the drawing at Ezra. "Not bad," he announced, offering back the page. "Mary's got a catalog of some of those exhibitions from Paris several years back. Got some stuff in it like that – if you're interested in that sort of thing."

 

The last was said off-handedly, as if Chris himself were just relating the news, but Ezra knew better. Chris Larabee was a reader, of things more complex than the dime novels and popular magazines that turned up in the town. Ezra had seen the worn copy of Byron's poetry that Chris kept in the pocket of his plainsman, and he'd overheard a conversation between Chris and Judge Travis the last time the Judge had been in town, a conversation that had had to do with the new National Art Gallery in Washington, D.C..

 

Ezra nodded as he took the drawing. "I shall ask her," he said easily, "as I am interested in that sort of thing."

 

"Her pictures look like women?" Buck asked, but Ezra heard the humor in his voice, the light teasing that was playful not malicious.

 

Chris glanced to Buck and shook his head, but his lips twitched. Behind him, Ezra saw Vin look away, hiding his own grin.

 

"Maybe you need some color," JD suggested, stepping up beside Ezra's chair and leaning over, so that his chest brushed against Ezra's ear. "Some of that paint or something - "

 

"Some colored chalk?" Buck piped up. "Or some of them watercolor paints - I bet Mrs. Potter could get some of those if you want - "

 

"It's supposed to be in pencil," Ezra cut them off, holding on to irritation. "The very idea of it is to be vague, indistinct, an impression."

 

JD bent lower and Ezra edged to the side of the chair. He glanced up, past JD, to see Vin still staring out into the roadway, his grin wider, amused, as he so often was, by Ezra's annoyance.

 

"Then why do you have so many straight lines?" JD asked, pointing to the drawing. "Everything is so straight – that's pretty clear, if you ask me."

 

"It's not in the lines," Chris said, surprising Ezra. "It's in the stuff that's not in the lines - and the idea that with charcoal, the lines will smudge, look a little fuzzy. There are straight lines, but when it's finished, it won't be so clear."

 

JD stared for a few seconds more then he straightened up and Ezra felt a physical relief at the distance. "I don't know," JD said doubtfully.

 

"Ain't gonna get no womanly curves with smudging," Buck agreed, leaning further back in his chair. "Though some color might help."

 

Ezra sighed and shook his head, thinking that it was time for a drink. But as he folded the current drawing back in the pad so that a clean piece of paper was on top, Vin said, "Ezra likes straight lines. Ain't nothing wrong with that."

 

"Yeah," Chris said dryly, stepping off the boardwalk and into the road. He touched his hat to several women who were passing by as he went on, just loud enough for the others to hear, "lets him know the boundaries so he can figure out how to play outside 'em."

 

Buck and JD laughed, and Ezra called out, "Always best to know the lines, Mr. Larabee Something you seem rather proficient with as well." He grinned too, amused, but as he passed Vin, he noticed that the other man wasn't smiling, his brow wrinkled in thought and his eyes on Ezra as he followed Chris into the street.

 

*&*&*&*&*&

 

"Yes," Ezra said, his hands sliding up under the cloth of Vin's shirt, pushing to get it off his shoulders and down his arms. "We've got all night."

 

He leaned in for the kiss, pressing close against Vin's bare chest. Vin's cock, already hard and ready, bruised against Ezra's naked belly. They had made short work of stripping down, though, as he said, they had all night. It had been over a week since they'd had time together without other demands, and they were both desperate – both of them. It made Ezra smile to hear the little needy noises Vin made when Ezra touched him, to feel the pulse of Vin's heart, fast and erratic, to feel the clutch of his hands on Ezra's shoulders, back, and ass, to feel the bite of his teeth as they slid along Ezra's throat and shoulders.

 

"Ain't going nowhere," Vin said, a smile in his words. But he shrugged, resetting the shirt on his arms as he canted his head down to lick at Ezra's ear.

 

It was a ploy, a damned good one, but a ploy; Ezra was susceptible to that sort of distraction, his ears particularly sensitive, as Vin had learned early on. Before Ezra realized it, he was on his back on the bed, Vin on top of him, their bare chests together, their cocks straining against each other, and Ezra's hands tangled in Vin's shirt.

 

Which Vin still wore.

 

"What the - " He pulled back, pushed at Vin's shoulders so that he could see the other man's face.

 

Vin blinked, his lips swollen, his cheeks pink in the low light of the lamp. "Wanna – tonight," he said, staring at Ezra, "I want to – well, if you'll let me, I'd like to - " He stopped and took a deep breath, as if steadying himself. But the skin under Ezra's hands shivered and Ezra watched as Vin swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing long and slow.

 

"What do you want?" Ezra asked, though he felt the drop in the pit of his belly, the frisson of anticipation in his groin. They'd done this a few times, not often, and Vin had never asked. It had been desperate and needy, not good, but not bad; it wasn't what either of them preferred, though he thought that sometimes, Vin simply needed it, to feel like he had control.

 

Vin leaned down again, licking along Ezra's jawline, not meeting his eyes as he said, "Want to fuck you – be in you," he amended quickly, as if the words were too coarse.

 

Ezra grinned into Vin's hair as it lay across his face, tickling. "You may fuck me," he said, saying the last two words slowly and with emphasis. "Seems only fair."

 

The pupils of Vin's eyes got larger, so large that Ezra could barely see the blue that framed them. The shiver he'd felt before grew stronger, an actual tremor of need that ran through Vin's body like the wind before a storm, twisting up any thing it touched.

 

"The tin is in the drawer," Ezra said, one hand sliding along Vin's back, under the shirt. "Take your time." Vin's flesh wasn't smooth – there were bumps and scars and ridges that Ezra had come to know well. He'd asked after most of them, gotten answers on a few, mostly when Vin was on the edge of sleep or drunk on whiskey that Ezra had brought to the room. Ezra wanted to know them all, and he thought, tonight, he might ask. But as his fingers reached the midpoint, counting the knobs in Vin's spine, Vin pushed up and turned, reaching out for the drawer of the bedside table. His shirt, a worn checked flannel that was soft to the touch but fading, wafted with the movements, accentuating the long planes of his body, the sun-darkened color of his skin.

 

Vin was careful and slow, too damned slow, and while it was good, because nothing with Vin could be bad, it wasn't as good as Ezra would have liked. And from the way Vin seemed to struggle for release, Ezra thought that perhaps it wasn't as good for him, either.

 

They drifted off to sleep, Vin on his side facing Ezra, one arm stretched across Ezra's back. Ezra remembered at one point, as he surfaced from a dream, that the shirt was a mystery. But as he rolled over, the question heavy on his tongue, he found the bed empty again, the light turned out.

 

In the morning, he promised himself, as he drifted back to sleep.

 

*&*&*&*&*&

 

The bath had been perfect, the water hot, the smell of soap and pommade clean and rich, the razor sharp but not biting, and his own clean clothes pressed to sharp creases and smelling of the Chinaman's light jasmine powders.

 

Ezra stood in the foyer of the bathhouse, strapping on his arm rig, then pulling on his jacket. The bathhouse was hot and steamy, but he wouldn't leave without his coat in place; one never knew what sort of trouble one might meet on the other side of the door.

 

As he settled his jacket and his hat, his clothing bags over his shoulder, he extended his right arm straight before him, triggering the mechanism that slid the small two-shooter into his waiting hand. Perfect. He closed his right eye, using his left to sight down the short barrel. A straight shot, the gun exactly where it should be.

 

"More lines, huh." Chris' voice was low and even, and there was a hint of something in it that might have been humor, though Ezra wasn't quite sure.

 

"Lines?" he asked, turning his arm so that he could push the gun back into place against this elbow.

 

"Straight lines," Chris said, scrubbing at his hair with a towel. He was just out of the bath himself, his black shirt hanging open around him, his pants and boots one but the rest of him not quite put together yet. "You like straight lines, remember? You said so the other day." He pulled the towel off his shoulders and dropped it onto the bench in front of them, then he set about buttoning his shirt and tucking it into his pants.

 

Ezra watched, unable to stop himself, as Chris pulled his gunbelt off his shoulder and made quick, efficient work of strapping it around his lean hips and then tying the strap around his hard thigh. It reminded Ezra of Vin and how practiced he was at the same thing. His cock jumped in his pants as those long fingers deftly knotted the leather strap.

 

"Sometimes, though," Chris went on, his voice distant, "things ain't as straight as we'd like for them to be."

 

Ezra blinked as Chris dropped his leg back down, his hands reaching to pick up the bags he'd set on the bench. "Pardon?" he asked, unable to recall was Chris had just said.

 

Chris slung his bags over his shoulder and picked up his hat. He combed through his hair, pushing his wet bangs back before settling the black leather into place. Then he looked at Ezra, his green eyes catching the faint light from the sun coming through the room's cloth-covered window. "I understand why you like lines so much – what you said, 'bout knowing where boundaries are, what you can and can't do. Makes sense. But some people don't have – well, they don't have the same lines. And it makes 'em worry."

 

Ezra stared at the other man, the words making no sense. But that, even more so, made no sense; Chris Larabee was a man of few words, and none of them were wasted. There was something here Ezra was supposed to understand. Though it seemed like gibberish all the way through.

 

Chris turned away, heading for the door, and Ezra hurried to gather up his things to follow. The questions tumbled over each other in his head, the main idea, though, coming back to Vin. What did Chris know about Vin that Ezra himself didn't? It was a question that bit at him, provoking the specter of jealousy that always seemed to hover near.

 

But as he stepped out onto the boardwalk, he saw Chris striding rapidly down the street ahead of him. Past Chris, Ezra saw horses restlessly moving in front of the building where Nathan kept his clinic. And one of the horses, riderless and restlessly pulling at the reins JD was holding, was Vin's.

 

Ezra didn't think, stepping into the street and taking off at a trot. Vin had been out with – dammit, JD, riding over to Nettie's to help her work on a fence -

 

He managed to catch up with Chris as they drew near and JD saw them. The words tumbled out of him with the speed of panic.

 

"He was trying to break one of Nettie's new colts – the skittish one, the one who won't let anyone but Vin get near. The horse bucked him – he said it wasn't bad, said he was all right, but the closer we got to town, the worse he was feeling - I tried, Chris, so did Nettie, we tried to get him to take a wagon - "

 

Ezra didn't hear the rest, pushing past Chris and taking the stairs two at a time. His bag of dirty clothes and toiletries bounced against him, the metal of his hairbrush and razor rattling against each other and bruising his chest but he didn't care.

 

He didn't even stop when he got to Nathan's door, forgetting the rule that no one entered without permission first. He had the door open and was three steps inside when he saw Vin stretched out on his stomach on the bed, Nathan sitting at his hip, his hands large and dark against the width of Vin's bare back.

 

Nathan turned quickly, glaring up at Ezra, but Vin was the one who moved, pushing up and turning so that he was facing Ezra.

 

"Whoa," Nathan said, leaning forward so that he was bracing Vin. "No need to go hitting the ground again – your back's busted up enough."

 

Ezra heard the words, understood the idea – Vin was hurt, didn't need to be anxious – but his first thought as he stared into those hard, angry eyes, was that Vin was never going to forgive him, that if Vin's gun was close enough, which, thankfully, it wasn't, he would be dead.

 

That was the idea that seated in his brain as he stood still, hearing, slowly, the sound of boots stomping up the stairs, spurs ringing as if there were a song to be sung. Then the door pushed open wider and Chris was there, dark and deadly.

 

"You all right?" he asked, but it wasn't really a question. It was a demand, and Ezra thought he might hate Chris for that fact. Because he could never do that, he could never demand that from Vin. He could ask, he could cajole, he could probably beg - and maybe, eventually, he would. When he needed Vin that much.

 

Like now.

 

"Yeah," Vin answered, his gaze shifting from Ezra to Chris, and it felt like the sun had gone behind a cloud. "Just some bruising, no need for everyone to be so worried." The sun came back then, burning as the gaze of it touched Ezra's face. The anger was gone, just like that, but there was still strain in the furrow of his brow and the tightness of his jaw. Vin's face seemed pink, flushed, even his ears darker than Ezra was used to, as if the blood had rushed upward when he moved. "I let a damned colt throw me, no one's fault but my own. Should have had a better grip on his reins."

 

How like him, the damned fool. How like him to blame himself, and to be embarrassed about it. Because he believed he could control everything. Because he could never be incompetent in Chris Larabee's eyes.

 

Ezra twisted, ready to walk out the door, ready to walk away from Vin. But as he turned, his hand catching at the doorknob, he found himself staring into Chris' gaze. Heavy, green, deliberate – willing him to stop and to think.

 

_"Sometimes, though, things ain't as straight as we'd like for them to be."_

 

The words came unbidden, as if seeing Chris was enough to draw them from his memory. As if being here would make them make sense.

 

But as he thought that, his memory flashed on what he had seen in that brief second before Vin had rolled away. What his eyes, trained to register what his brain was too busy to notice, had seen: scars, long welts and ridges.

 

He knew them, not by sight but by touch. They were there anytime he held Vin, any time he ran his hands over the other man's body, any time they joined.

 

Long raised scars that ran parallel to his spine and at places, across it, scars that puckered, scars that stretched, scars that told of a life with many complications. Ezra knew them, knew as much about them as Vin had shared, as he would share.

 

But there was something else, something that was a shadow on his memory, a darkness in the image behind his eyes. He tried to see it, to make it come to mind as his pictures did, but it was like a serpent gliding just below the surface of the water, undulating with a slow, curving swim, a question mark that waved back and forth just out of clear sight.

 

Curves that moved, bent, reformed, but were never straight lines, never boundaries.

 

Never clear, not with Vin.

 

"I'll be all right," Vin's voice, low but firm broke through Ezra's concentration, drawing him back to the moment, back to the green of Chris' eyes. "No need in all this worry."

 

"He will be," Nathan confirmed. "Long as he takes it easy for a while, sleeps flat on his back, don't do nothing taxing."

 

Ezra drew a deep breath, then, when Chris looked away toward the bed, he pushed past him and out the door, out into the afternoon sun. Away from the two men who knew each other better than he could ever know either of them, better than he could know the one he most wanted to.

 

*&*&*&*&

 

He didn't avoid the saloon – he couldn't. He worked there, made his living there, earned the real money he needed to pay for the way he preferred to live.

 

But for the next few days, he only went there in the late evening, when he knew he could sit at a table of people he hardly knew, when the others, all damned six of them, would have either come and gone already or would have secreted themselves away in the shadows, not interested in the attention of spectators.

 

He saw Vin, sitting in those shadows, his body unnaturally straight, his face furrowed in pain, but Ezra couldn't, wouldn't meet his eyes. Vin had made the choice, pushing him away, angry at his concern, while accepting Chris'. Embarrassed by showing vulnerability to Chris, but not thinking at all about Ezra's concern for him.

 

He knew, though, in the quiet part of his mind, in the voice that whispered to him in the grey area between wakefulness and sleep, that it wasn't about Chris. He knew this not because of Vin, but because of those words Chris had shared, in the bathhouse, the hints that Chris had given.

 

He sat for long, lonely hours in his room, avoiding the rest of them, avoiding Vin. And he drew.

 

He drew what he saw, walls and roofs and windows, the road into town and out. Hitching posts and water troughs, and the boardwalk and the support beams and lines. Lines.

 

Straight, sharp lines.

 

It was the morning of the third day that he realized what he was doing. He wasn't sure why he did; there was no voice sounding like Chris Larabee telling him he was trapped inside the rules, there was no image of Vin, frowning or irritated, staring at his art. But he was drawing rigid, inflexible things.

 

Because he was thinking of Vin.

 

He crumpled up the piece he was working on, tossing it in the general direction of a trash container. It was decadent; paper wasn't cheap, and he had rubber erasers and high quality gum to remove the lines of the pencil lead. But he was drawing all wrong, was not drawing what he should be.

 

He picked up a fresh piece of paper, staring at it. White, empty. Square. Like everything else he'd been seeing and drawing.

 

Ezra sighed and closed his eyes, trying to visualize something to draw. But all he could think of was Vin as he had last seen him, on his stomach, on Nathan's bed, curls fanned along his bare shoulders, Nathan's dark hands on his slender back. Nathan's long fingers beside Vin's knobby spine.

 

Nathan's fingers – Nathan's fingers. Long and straight, lines on either side of Vin's spine, a spine Ezra had touched often but seen rarely. Vin's spine . . . .

 

He opened his eyes just enough to see the paper in front of him, to watch the movement of the pencil as it moved across the page. He didn't think, couldn't think; thinking about what he was doing only stalled the process. Instead, he let his hand move, the image taking form as if from someone else.

 

It was only when his hand slowed, then stopped, the pencil finally lifting from the page, that he looked at what he hadn't been able to call forth completely from his memory.

 

_"Sometimes, though, things ain't as straight as we'd like for them to be."_

 

It wasn't noticeable, not on sight, more a shadow in the space between Nathan's fingers. But Ezra's fingers remembered it now, not as much in the drawing of it as in the feel of it on the rare few times he'd run his hands along Vin's lower back, where the hard bones gave way to the rounding muscles.

 

His spine curved.

 

It made sense; Vin had a hard time sitting in the saddle all day, and Ezra had often wondered if his need to track was because he simply had to walk, to stretch his long legs.

 

It was, though, to stretch his back, the curve to one side making it painful for him to hold one straight position for so long. It explained so much – the familiar lean, the way he stood so often when his fingers hooked in his gunbelt, hips canted to one side, the slowness of his walk after a long day in the saddle, the way he rolled onto his side in bed.

 

He hadn't hidden it from Ezra, not at first. He hadn't said anything about it, but he hadn't been as shy about hiding it.

 

No, Ezra thought, staring down at the picture before him, it had started when Vin had first seen Ezra's drawings. All his lines and angles.

 

All his attention to lines, straight and long and rigid. Boundaries.

 

No wonder Vin was wary. No wonder Vin was avoiding him. It wasn't about being weak in front of Chris – Chris who had tried to tell him, in the bathhouse. It was about Ezra seeing him and finding him flawed.

 

He stared down at the picture, memorizing the details. The tips of his fingers tingled as he recalled the smoothness of Vin's skin, warm and taut, marked here and there by the ridges and puckers of different scars, the bumpy path of his spine. But not his lower spine. Vin had rarely let him get that far.

 

And shouldn't he have remembered that? Shouldn't he have noticed? He could almost hear Maude in his head, taking him to task for getting distracted.

 

But he didn't want to hear Maude, not about this, not ever. He looked around, seeing the room as if for the first time. The sun was past noon, resting in the sky. Crumpled pages littered the floor, his clothes strewn about on the bed, the chair, even the dresser. Where had he been? he wondered, though he knew. He had been with Vin, trying to find the answer.

 

And now he had it. If it wasn't too late.

 

He tossed the pad of paper and the pencil onto the bed in disgust, then pushed up out of the chair, the muscles of his legs and back protesting, telling him how long it had been since he had moved. He stretched, spreading his feet to balance, but as he did, his boots crunched against more wads of paper on the floor. He bent down, feeling the pull in his lower back, a slight ache, and he wondered how bad it must feel for Vin, what with the curve. And he wondered again at his own inattention.

 

As he straightened, he uncurled the ball of paper. The scene he had been sketching was one of Vin, standing straight and long as he leaned against the support beam of the boardwalk. Leaning straight, creating a triangle.

 

Ezra shook his head as he tossed the page onto the bed and moved to find his gunbelt, coat and hat. But as he reached for his coat, he had another thought. Walking over to the bed, he picked up paper and pencil and once more let the impulse, the muse, move him.

 

When he was finished, he smiled. The sun was lower on the floor now, time for supper. The perfect time for this.

 

*&*&*&*&*

 

"Well, now!" Buck put down his fork and leaned closer to Ezra, his eyebrows high on his forehead. "That's more like it!" He reached out and took the page out of Ezra's hand, and it was an effort for Ezra not to hold it tighter.

 

But this was what he needed, so he let go of it and took a deep breath, looking down at the plate of enchiladas and beans before him.

 

Not at Vin, who was sitting across the table beside Chris, his back stiff and straight, his face pulled tight. He hurt, Ezra could tell, but the severity of his features only served to remind Ezra of the details he had missed.

 

"You're getting right good at this art thing, Ezra!" Buck said with a grin, looking up from the page. "Now all we got to do is get you to look at size – you got the curves going, but you ain't got the right size curves on Mary's - "

 

"Buck!" JD said, reaching in and taking the page out of Buck's hand. "How can you even say such a thing about Mrs. Travis?" He frowned, pulling the page a little closer to his eyes before adding, "But you might be right – not that I've looked!" He turned, handing the page to Josiah, who was sitting next to him.

 

"I thought it prudent to take a little artistic license," Ezra said dryly. "One never knows when the object of one's artistic endeavors might hear of them."

 

Across the table, Chris snorted and beside him, Vin shifted, his lips twitching as some of the lines in his brow eased a little.

 

"Moderation in all things," Josiah intoned, handing the page off to Nathan, who had his mouth full. "I must admit that I prefer the more realistic portraitures, like this one. Not bad, Ezra."

 

"Yep," Nathan agreed with a nod, still chewing. He handed the page on to Chris, who had the grace to push his plate away and wipe his hands on his napkin before taking it.

 

Ezra ate, not tasting the food, which was a marvel in itself given the chili peppers Inez had used. He tried not to show his anxiety, but it grew as Chris continued to stare at the image, his fine eyebrows drawn together in what Ezra hoped was concentration and not disdain.

 

Eventually, after Ezra's mouth had stopped feeling any of the burn of the food, Chris nodded and said, "Hard thing to do, balancing what you see against what everyone else wants to see. Sometimes, you gotta look at something straight on first. Then find the curves."

 

He looked up, meeting Ezra's gaze across the table as he handed the page off to Vin. Ezra swallowed, then he, too, nodded. "Truer words, Mr. Larabee," he murmured.

 

Beside Chris, Vin held the page carefully, a smile slowly creeping across his face as he looked at it and then up at Ezra, meeting his gaze.

 

*&*&*&*&*&

 

"Calling it a night," Chris said, throwing in his cards disgustedly as Ezra raked in the small pot of coins. "Cheaper that way." He drank the last of his whiskey then picked up his hat as he stood. "You coming?"

 

Vin sighed, leaning forward to pick up his beer glass. It was over half full, and probably as warm as the room, Ezra thought. The effort of reaching for it seemed hardly worth it. "In a while," Vin said. "No rush – can't sleep on the damned bed, not for long. Reckon I'll pay Ezra to distract me a while longer."

 

Behind Vin, Chris grinned quickly, his teeth bright in the saloon's low lights. But his voice was even as he said, "You need help, send someone to fetch me." He nodded to Ezra, then walked away, his spurs jingling rhythmically.

 

Vin took a long pull on his beer, then made a face as he put the glass carefully back down on the table.

 

"I have whiskey in my room," Ezra offered, shuffling the cards. "It might help with the pain."

 

Vin drew in a careful breath then said, "Might. But Nathan's afraid I might do something stupid if I stop hurting."

 

"Yes," Ezra said dryly, "that does seem to be one of his constant concerns as regards us all."

 

Vin grinned, but it was quick and tired. He sat back carefully in the chair, his body unnaturally stiff.

 

"Perhaps you need someone else around, to make certain that you don't move while you're sleeping," Ezra suggested, still shuffling the cards.

 

Vin looked at him. "Can't sleep on a bed, 'specially not one that's soft."

 

"No, of course not," Ezra agreed easily. "But even rooms with soft beds have hard floors. Lines and curves, after all, go together."

 

Vin tilted his head to one side – or tried to. Pain flashed across his features, and Ezra leaned forward, dropping the cards as he reached out toward the other man.

 

Vin swallowed, then nodded, letting out his breath slowly. "I'm all right. Just forget sometimes what I can't do right now."

 

Ezra nodded, but he was still leaning forward, resting on the table. "Perhaps then you should consider my offer," he said quietly. "I have plenty of floor space – and a rug that might help ease some of the hardness of it."

 

Vin looked at him, his gaze sharp even in the dim light. "Ain't up to nothing," he said, almost a whisper. "Don't want you to think - "

 

"I don't think anything except that you need rest," Ezra interrupted him.

 

After a time, Vin nodded, once. "Reckon I could stand a rug to sleep on. If you're – well, if you're sure."

 

Ezra smiled, sitting back so he could gather up the cards and his hat. "Let us find that whiskey," he said. pushing back from the table. He walked around it to help Vin get to his feet, steadying him until he adapted to the unnatural rigidness of his upper body. The feel of him, warm and lean, so familiar and intimate, made Ezra's breath catch.

 

For a few seconds, Ezra's muse offered up a new drawing, the long straight lines of Vin's body, the straight lines of his forehead and mouth as he fought the pain.

 

He ignored the image and was rewarded when Vin slowly smiled at him. "Don't forget your drawing," he said, pointing slowly toward the paper on a nearby chair.

 

"It's yours," Ezra said, though he bent down to get it.

 

"Mine?" Vin said, frowning again. "It's right nice, Ezra, but I don't know that I need a picture of Mary."

 

Ezra held it up. "It's a picture of you," he said quietly, pointing to a figure far in the background.

 

Vin looked at it, then he looked at Ezra.

 

"It's not perfect," Ezra said, turning the page so he could see it too. "But I hope to get a lot more practice."

 

Vin nodded, looking back at the image of the man leaning against a support beam, his body forming a soft curve against the sharp line of the wood.

 

 

 

 

 

  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
